The Exeter communal records are relatively abundant, and I
shall attempt here only to sum up the main features in its record up to the
close of the eighteenth century, leaving fuller treatment for another occasion
and probably another hand. The earliest settler here in modern times seems to
have been an Italian snuff-merchant, Gabriel Treves, who arrived some time
before 1735. He was followed over from Italy by his nephew, Joseph Ottolenghi,
who became converted to Christianity. The uncle did not treat the apostate with
as much kindliness as the latter optimistically expected, and the consequence
was a spate of polemical publications (Bibl. B4. 10 and 11, B5. 9). It does not
appear from these that there was any sort of organised Jewish life at Exeter at
this time. Nevertheless, in an address given in 1853, on the occasion of the
rededication of the Synagogue, it was stated that the congregation had been
founded in 1728; that an inscription dating to this period could still be
deciphered in the burial-ground; and that a place of worship had been dedicated
about 1734. It is hardly worth while in this connection to call attention to
Lemuel Hart of Devon (brother of a Moses Hart of London) who died in 1747 (Will: O.C.C., Potter 72) but who
clearly was not a Jew.(i) In The Hampshire repository, vol: ii, there is recorded
the death on November 20th 1799, at Portsmouth, of 'Mr. Ezekiel, an eminent Jew,
who resided at Exeter 50 years, where he founded a Synagogue.' He is obviously
identical with Ezekiel ben Abraham of Exeter, who in 1795 figured among the
subscribers to the work Midrash Phineas, and, if already resident at Portsmouth
in that year, must have been at Exeter as early as 1745. His son, presumably,
was Ezekiel Abraham Ezekiel of Exeter (1757-1806), the eminent miniature painter
and engraver, and his grandson Solomon (Hebraice Isaac!) Ezekiel (1781-1867),
the conscientious champion of Judaism at Penzance.

Ark of Exeter Synagogue

(1763/4)(from a photograph)

Ezekiel ben Abraham Ezekiel, or Ezekiel Abraham Ezekiel, seems
to have been known generally, and confusingly, as Abraham Ezekiel. He was a
goldsmith by profession (as were also Moses Mordecai Hart, who registered his
mark at the local Assay Office in 1788, and Jacob Nathan, who followed suit in
1833.) Early Exeter clockmakers include Samuel Jonas, 1783; Moses Hart, 1828;
and H. Cohen, 1835, in addition to this same E. A. Ezekiel, 1794). In 1760 he
was granted the administration of the goods of Mordecai Solomon, of the same
place, deceased, as creditor; he died in 1806 and his widow died at the age of
70 in the same year.(ii) Abraham Ezekiel and his brother Benjamin together with
Samuel Jonas, were mainly responsible for the consecration in 1763-4 of the
synagogue, still standing in Synagogue Place, Mary Arches Street. The cemetery
(perhaps not the first) in Magdalen Street, adjoining Bull Meadow, was acquired
in 1807, the earliest decipherable tombstone in it being of that year: but there
is evidence that it was in use earlier. Here is the grave of Moses Horvitz Levi,
1754-1837, Minister of the congregation for twelve years, and of Solomon Aarons, who died
in 1864 at the age of 102. Local directories, registers of voters and
newspaper-cuttings, assembled by Mr. Wilfred Samuel and the Rev. M. Adler,
provide ample further information about the community and its members: and it is
on record that at the time of the invasion scare of 1798 the Jews were admitted
to the local volunteers. In 1808, L. Cohen of Exeter published an appeal to his
brethren for religious loyalty and in 1825 A New System of Astronomy(iii), and in
1837 Alexander Alexander, of the same city, optician to William IV and his
consort (Voice of Jacob, iv. 229) published Observations on the Preservation of
Sight. The community was said to comprise in 1842 about thirty families or 175
souls, the officers being A. Cohen and B. Jonas, and the Minister the Rev.
Samuel Hoffnung. Thanks to the liberality of his children, the Synagogue,
rebuilt and enlarged in 1836 (when the opportunity was taken to remove the Ark
to the East wall) and again overhauled in 1853, was restored a generation ago.
The original community was officially dissolved in 1889, though occasional
services are still held. The most important records and some interesting pieces
of old silver are distributed between the Mocatta Library and the Jewish Museum,
London.

Notes to Exeter

(i) The London Gazette reports on
October 24th 1741 the bankruptcy of Symon Nathan, Exeter: I suspect that he belonged to the
Frome family. Mention should be made also of Manele b. Zalman ( ? Emanuel
Solomon), of Exeter, admitted a member of the Great Synagogue in 1763/4.

(ii) Cf. his obituary, Trs. J.H.S.E. xiv. 105.

(iii) Lazarus Cohen
(presumably the same who figures in the local directories as
a shoe and patten maker) had exhibited an improved
reaping machine before the Leeds Agricultural Society in
1790.

According to the Jewish Chronicle article of 1842, followed as
usual by Margoliouth, the Falmouth congregation was established about 1740 by
Alexander Moses (Margoliouth calls him Moses Alexander). Alexander Moses was
known to the outside world as Henry Moses, and among his co-religionists as
Alexander, or Zander, Falmouth, and in the Records of my Family, by
Israel Solomon (New York 1887) there is an account of how he used to
set up Jewish pedlars in trade on condition that they would return to Falmouth
for the Sabbath to attend service. Though he apparently began his activity in
the first half of the eighteenth century, it was only in 1766 (according to the
Falmouth and Penryn Directory and Guide of 1864) that a Synagogue was
established in Hamblyn's Court, subsequently known as Dunstan's or Jeffery's
Court, on the site of the present gas-works. A Cornish oven, formerly in this
building and perhaps used for baking the Matzoth on Passover, is preserved in
the Falmouth Museum. In 1808, a permanent structure was erected in Smithwick (or
Parram) Hill, then known as Fish Street Hill, 'being an excellent and convenient
building for the performance of their ancient religious worship.' ('A new Jewish
synagogue was opened in Falmouth on Friday', we read in the Royal Cornwall
Gazette of August 16th 1808, 'and consecrated with great pomp.'). A Burial
ground, adjacent to the Congregational cemetery, was presented to the community
later on by Lord Dunstanville, on the high road to Penzance.(i)

Among the early members of the community may be mentioned Wolf
Benjamin and Jacob Wolfe, active in Masonic work from about 1789 (and possibly
Barnet Falcke, c. 1811)(ii); Isaac Polack, letters of administration over whose
property were granted to his daughter in 1794; Barnet Levy, one of those set up
in business by Zander Falmouth: and Israel Solomon, of Ehrenbreitstein in
Germany, grandfather of the chronicler. According to a family record in a Hebrew
Pentateuch now in the Mocatta Library, London, Henry Harris settled in Falmouth
in 1800, after spending five years in Penzance; in 1821 he returned to Truro,
and later to London. The Falmouth Directory appended to Tratham's work of 1815, referred to above, includes the following
unmistakeable names:- G. Abrahams, Bullion Office, Church Street; L. Joseph,
Bullion Merchant, High Street; A. Joseph, Broker etc., Church Street; L. Jacobs,
watchmaker, Market Strand; S, Solomon, Broker (Bullion Office) Market Street;
and K. Solomon (perhaps wife of the former), milliner and haberdasher, Market
Street. The President of the community at this period was Lyon Joseph, the first
person in this list, and the 'Steward' was Samuel Harris. In the first half of
the nineteenth century, Zander Falmouth's grandson, Jacob Jacob, was the
mainstay of the community, being succeeded after his death in 1852 by one of his
sons. In 1842, the community comprised some fourteen families, Jacob Jacob being
President, Henry Harris, Treasurer, and Joseph Rintell, Minister: and in 1847
there were nine subscribing members, three additional seat-holders, and a total
Jewish population of fifty. In the second half of the century, the congregation
was kept in being solely through the devotion of the Jacob family (for details
of them see J.C. 15.iv.1903). The last Minister whose name is on record is N.
Lipman, subsequently Chief Shochet in London, who must have officiated there in
the eighteen-sixties. The original census returns of 1851 inform us that 'since
the breaking-up of the foreign packet establishment here the congregation has
decreased with the inhabitants generally.'

After 1880, the community fell into complete decadence. In
1892, the synagogue was in a deplorable condition, and the Chief Rabbi was
pressing the Trustees (A. L. Emanuel, Simeon Solomon Harris and Samuel Jacob) to
sell it and devote the proceeds to keeping the burial ground in repair.
Nevertheless, the Synagogue still stands, being used as a carpenter's shop. The
Ten Commandments from the interior are now in the Jewish Museum, London. A
scroll of the Law was transferred to the
Hampstead Synagogue, London, with an
antique pair of Bells (now likewise in the Jewish Museum), and other
appurtenances to the Parkhurst Prison. The last interment of a member of the
original community in the House of Life took place in 1913 - the first for
fifty-three years.

Notes to Falmouth

(i) For a register of the tombstones then
decipherable, cf. J.C. 22. vii. 1910.

(ii) Information of Mr. Lewis Edwards. Barnet Falcke was however
a member of a Trinitarian order (cf. Osborne, Freemasonry in West Cornwall).
Wolf Benjamin was the father of the Miss Benjamin of Falmouth, who married
Lion Levy at Leathersellers' Hall, London, in 1783, according to the
contemporary press. (This was the Lion Levy who threw himself from the
Monument in London in 1809).

The Glasgow community is now fourth in order of size in the
United Kingdom, but surprisingly little is known about its earliest days, and
that little is hopelessly self-contradictory. My earliest Glasgow Jew is Isaac
Cohen, hatter, admitted a Gild Brother and Burgess of the city in 1812 (J.C.
30.viii.1840). According to the current accounts, he must have lived in virtual
solitude, for the Jewish Encyclopaedia gives the date of the foundation of the
community as 'about 1830,' and Robert Reid, in Glasgow Past and Present (1884)
speaks of the first Synagogue as having been opened in Post Office Court about
1840. On the other hand, The Jewish Year Book of 1904 gives the information that
part of the Necropolis was set aside for Jewish burials in 1830, and that in
1834 worship was conducted in a private house in High Street - the precursor
apparently of the Conventicle in Post Office Court referred to above. The Voice
of Jacob of 19.viii.1842 indicates that in 1840 the lease of the room formerly
used for worship had expired, a new temporary synagogue holding about 150
persons being now consecrated. Probably, however, there was some sort of Jewish
organisation in the city as early as 1826 - four years before the earliest date
hitherto suggested - as we know that one M. Michael was authorised to practise
here as Shochet in 1826, and Solomon Sternburgh a little later in the same
year.

All authorities have hitherto overlooked an exceptionally
detailed account of the origins of the community to which my attention was drawn
by Dr. R. N. Salaman, in The New Statistical Account of Scotland (1845),
vi. 238-9. The passage is of such importance and interest that it must be quoted
in full(i):

"A Jews' synagogue was opened in this city in September 1823.
Mr. Moses Lisenheim is their priest, Hebrew teacher, killer, inspector, marker,
and sealer. It appears from a report of a Select Committee of the House of
Commons in 1828, that in London the office of priest and killer merges
in the same person, and that no Jew can use meat unless the
animals are slain with a peculiar knife, and marked with Hebrew seals. The Feast
of Tabernacles, which used to be celebrated by the Glasgow Jews in Edinburgh, is
now observed in this city.

"Edward Davies, son of Mr. David Davies, optician, was the
first that was circumcised in Glasgow. The rite was performed by Mr. Michael on
18th July 1824. The Jews resident in Glasgow in 1831 were 47 in number, viz.
males, 28, females, 19. Above twenty years of age, 28; below ditto, 19; born in
the following countries, viz. in Prussian Poland, 11; in various parts of
Germany, 12; in Holland, 3; in London, 5; in Sheerness, 10; in Glasgow, 6. The
increase since 1831 is but trifling.

"A burial ground has been made for the seed of Abraham at the
north-west corner of the Necropolis. It is separated from the Christians'
burying-ground by an ornamental screen, on which are inscribed the beautiful and
appropriate words from Byron's Hebrew Melody, beginning "Oh ! weep for those
that wept by Babel's stream."

"The community are greatly indebted to Mr. James Ewing, LL.D.
one of the Members of Parliament for the city, for having projected the
Necropolis, and to Mr. Laurence Hill, LL.B. collector to the Merchants' House,
for his unwearied exertions in promoting the interests of this beautiful and
romantic cemetery."

We are carried a stage further by two articles on the Ghetto in
Glasgow, which appeared in the local Evening Citizen of 12th February and 1st
March, 1894. From these it appears that the 'first settler' in the city and
organiser of the community, of which he was still President in 1850, was the
David Davis or Davies referred to. He was seconded by Wolf Levy and Henry Price
(both furriers), - Lesser, and - Levy, a travelling stationer; and then, in
1829, by S. J. Rubinstein (grandfather of Harold Rubinstein, the dramatist): it
was here, and not in London, that he received the remarkable Hebrew letter from
Mordecai Aaron Ginsberg, his teacher, a translation of which appears in my
Anglo-Jewish Letters. The first synagogue was established in two rooms in High
Street, in a house occupied by Moses Lisenheim, a few doors from the Glasgow
Cross: this was anterior to the place of worship in Post Office Court, in
Trongate, which in turn was superseded by those in Anderson's College (George
Street) and then Howard Street, which was in occupation up to 1852. In the
earliest days of the community's history, a rival conventicle was maintained by
a furniture dealer in the Candleriggs, Jonas Michael, who had quarrelled with
Davis and whose large family enabled him almost to maintain a minyan of his own.
This was responsible for the fact that he had his third son, Michael, trained as
shochet; but the young man died shortly after and was the second person buried
in the Jewish plot in the Necropolis.

The Jewish Encyclopaedia specifically denies that there was
more than a single congregation in Glasgow until 1881. However, at the time of
the Chief Rabbinate election of 1844 there were two - the 'Old' and the
'New' - both of which were sufficiently well-established to exercise their votes
and to pay for the privilege. It was at this time indeed the only provincial
community, other than Liverpool, which had more than one Synagogue; though this
was not one of those instances in which numbers signify strength.(ii)

Notes to
Glasgow

(i) The earlier data are taken over bodily from James
Cleland's Enumeration of the Inhabitants of the City of Glasgow of
1831.

(ii) Reference should be made to the reminiscences of
Glasgow Jewry in J. C. 22.x.1899, in addition to the sources referred to in
the text. To the Glasgow families should be added that of Loewenstein: Abraham
Levin Loewenstein, who died at Charleston in 1854, had been born here in
1832.

The Origins of Glasgow Jewry 1812-1895, by A. Levy, appeared
after the original publication of the present account and made use of
it.

Gloucester is one of the few old market-town communities that
has left any documentary record. In the Mocatta Library, London, was the manuscript of its regulations, or Takkanoth,
drawn up in Yiddish about the year 1800 and of considerable interest:
unfortunately, I failed to take note when the opportunity was open to me of the
names of the signatories or of the exact date. It is certain, however, that the
community was already relatively old-established at this period. There can be no
doubt that the Jewish settlement dates well back into the previous century. Hyam
Barnett, a silversmith, was reported on his death in the Spring of 1815 (G.M. i.
376) to have been 'well known during near forty years for the extent
of his dealings throughout this county, Hereford, Monmouth and South
Wales' - i.e. since
about 1775.(i) Still earlier was another member of the community about this
time--Israel (in Hebrew, Isaiah) Abrahams, who died in December 1821. His family
was subsequently asserted to have been resident in the city since the close of
the seventeenth century, and he himself had entered into possession of his house
in Southgate Street in 1765. He was a dealer, travelling jeweller and
moneychanger - the last being a thriving occupation in the then busy port. But he
acted also as factotum to the community, among his other functions being that of
baking the Matzoth: he was succeeded in these capacities by his son, Michael
Abrahams. Henry Jacobs of "The Little Dust Pan," Westgate Street, was another
local stalwart. The Jewish centre at this time was Eastgate Street, and the
Synagogue was in Mercy Place, opposite the Infirmary. The cemetery was in
Organ's Passage, or Gardner's Lane, off Barton Street, the first interment there
being that of the child Uri or Pheis (called Phillip) Levi, who died in the
autumn of 1784. The cemetery served also for persons from Ross, Stroud, and
elsewhere. Phillip Levi was perhaps a brother or son of Abraham b. Sampson Levy
of Gloucester, who was admitted a member of the Great Synagogue in 1801 (in which year he adopted his father-in-law's name of
Annesley).

The community was flourishing at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. In the Gloucester Public Library, there is preserved a
Hebrew Calendar for 1811-2 'for the use of Jews attending the Gloucester
Synagogue,' written by Israel Abrahams' father. Hyam Barnett, who has been
referred to above, and who subscribed to S. I. Cohen's Elements of Faith in
1815, was the father of Barnett Barnett (1787-1817) of Hereford, whose daughter,
Frances Barnett (1809-1892) was for many years Headmistress of the Jews' Free
School.(ii) A shochet, A. Levy, was authorised to practise at Gloucester in
1830 - apparently an established resident, for he signed the Chief Rabbi's
register: 'The particulars concerning Gloucester I and my father abide
by.'

But the community must have already been on the highroad to
decay: its members said that it was owing to the influx of the Quakers, with
their superior business ability. When the then Chief Rabbi visited the city in
July 1871, the independent existence of the congregation was already ended, the
few remaining members having affiliated themselves to the Cheltenham synagogue.
The last survivor was Miss Amelia Abrahams, daughter of Israel Abrahams and
Sarah his wife, who was born in 1792, and died in 1886, at the ripe old age of
ninety-five, in the house in Southgate Street which her father had acquired in
1765.(iii) There was a subsidiary Jewish group at Ross (Herefordshire), consisting
mainly of members of the Levy family - Isaac (b. Kalonymus) Levy (1782-1842) and
Esther (b. Isaiah) his wife (1784-1861), with Coleman Levy, silversmith, probably his son
(1817-1876) and Josephine, the latter's wife (1809-1876). At Ross lived also
Simha Castro (1758-1837) and another person, the name on whose tombstone is now
illegible, but who (it is recorded) 'after many years spent in active industry
returned to Ross, where he was no less distinguished by his great benevolence
than he had formerly been by his integrity and punctuality in London: died 11th
March 1831 corresponding to 5597 aged 86.' From the Hereford Journal of March
15th 1837 (cf. also G.M., 1837, p. 556), it appears that this worthy's name was
Moses Fernandez, late of New Ormond Street, London, his age being given,
however, as 87. The epitaph seems to imply that he had been born in Ross, in
1750 or 1751.

Notes to Gloucester

(i) In the same year Isaac Abraham
Zachariah of Gloucester, silversmith, figured in the London Gazette, as
did Sampson Levy (see below) in 1776.

(ii) Another Hereford family was that of Abraham Myer
(1796-1872), whose son, Horatio Myer, was well-known in the Anglo-Jewish
community a generation ago.

(iii) See the obituary notice
in the Gloucester Chronicle 7.viii.1886 and Gloucestershire
Notes and Queries, iv. 163-4: her epitaph is printed in the
account of the burial-ground, ibid pp. 385-7. (The name of her
father is given in Yiddish as Isaiah zu Gloucester, a sobriquet which confirms
the story that he was among the earliest local settlers.) The burial-ground
(the last trustee of which was H. Samuel, of Cheltenham) was converted in 1937
into a public park, the remains being removed to Bristol: it contained about
thirty-five graves.

Transcriptions of the epitaphs in the Burial Ground, copied
long since, are preserved in the Gloucester Public Library.
They are so few that it is worth while to append a full list
of the names*:-

(Uri Pheis or Philip Levi, 1784).

Isaiah Abraham, December 1821.

Eliza Abraham, w. of (Israel) Isaiah Abraham, 1727-1807.

Barnett Barnett (of Hereford) 1787-1817.

Maurice, son of Jacob Abraham, formerly of Bath, who died on
his voyage home from Melbourne, and was buried at sea, 1872.

Abigail Levy (1759-1849), widow of Moses Levy.

William Platt (Abraham b. Elimelech) (1775-1853) last watchman
at the burial ground.

Moses b. Jacob Levy (d. 1839).

H. Cohen, 1821.

Abraham Benzakin, 1819.

William Barnett, 1815.

Abraham Norden, 5544-1813 (!)

Rosetta, wife of above.

Telza their daughter (1781-1846).

Amelia Abrahams (1792-1886).

Feigele b. Isaiah (Abrahams ?) (1792-1846).

A child of Harry Jacobs.

Isaac Levy of Ross (Herefordshire), silversmith
(1782-1842).

Esther his wife (1784-1861).

Coleman (his son ?) (1817-1876).

Josephine, the latter's wife (1809-1876).

Simha Castro (1758-1827).

Michael and Rebecca, children of Isaac and Sarah Shane of
Stroud, 1885 and 1887.

*I am indebted to Dr. L. M. Sanker, late of
Bristol, for some further particulars taken from the stones which have Hebrew
inscriptions, and in some cases no English ones.

Hull is not generally included among the older Anglo-Jewish
communities*, and the Jewish Year Book long gave the date of the foundation of
the Old Hebrew Synagogue as 1826. But, when Mordecai Moses, of Lincoln, died in
1810, his remains were buried (according to the obituary in the Gentleman's
Magazine) in the burial ground of Hull. This information justifies us in
assuming that the foundation of the community dates back to the eighteenth
century, though not (as Margoliouth would have us believe) to its beginning. The
historical account in the earlier issues of The Jewish Year Book states that in
1904 the community was 'over a century' old. First, a former Catholic Chapel
ruined in the riots of 1780 was used as Synagogue. One may assume that its
leading member was Michael Levy, watchmaker, who was registered at Hull in 1770.
Another person who followed the same craft was Moses Symons (1822): we may
mention too Morris Goldsmid, late of Kingston-upon-Hull, merchant,
who failed in 1783. It may be added that Ellis Davidson, a pioneer
of art-teaching in schools, who died in 1878, was born in Hull in 1828, giving
us the name of a fourth local family. Finally, Phineas Abrahams, silversmith and
jeweller (later of Leeds) figures in the directory of 1822 as in business at 22
Paradise Place. David Jacobs, later of Charleston, S.C., was born in Hull in
1825.

A rival place of worship was established at an early date by
one Joseph Lyon on a site now occupied by Prince's Dock. The two congregations
amalgamated in 1826, when the Old Hebrew Congregation's Synagogue in Robinson
Road was constructed, foundation stones being laid by S. Meyer on behalf of the
senior component of the united body and by Israel Jacobs (father of Bethel
Jacobs, a son-in-law of Joseph Lyon) on behalf of the junior. The Minister in
1859, Mr. Symons, perhaps identical with the local watchmaker of that name, was
said (J.C. 14.x1859) to have served the community between forty and fifty
years.

Note to Hull

* It is unnecessary to waste time and space on the
absurd nineteenth century publications which would antedate the local Jewish
settlement to Stuart and even Tudor times.

According to
The Jewish Chronicle account, followed as usual by Margoliouth, a congregation was formed at Ipswich 'upwards of a century' before
1840, a room being hired in St. Clement's for the purpose of divine worship. It
is possible that the year indicated is not far from the correct one. The
evidence is based on what we know of the life of the remarkable centenarian,
Sarah Lyon, who was painted at the age of 101 by Constable in 1804, lived for
another four years and is buried in the local cemetery. The biographical account
in The Jewish Chronicle of June 19th 1896, informs us that she had a son and
daughter who both lived to be upwards of ninety years old, all of them being
resident in St. Peter's parish. That Sarah Lyon removed to Ipswich in extreme
old age is improbable, and it is highly likely that she was resident there in
the first half of the eighteenth century. The earliest specific mention of an
Ipswich Jew in modern times however is in connexion with the conversion of Lord
George Gordon, who, passing through the old Suffolk town, presumably about 1785,
is said to have been attracted by a Hebrew inscription outside the house of
Isaac Titterman, Sarah Lyon's son, who was designated as 'Rev.' and was probably
the Shochet of the community. (His portrait, said to be an early production of
Constable, is still extant in Sydney, New South Wales).

About 1790, the munificence and energy of Simon Hyam and
Lazarus Levy led to the erection of 'a neat and commodious synagogue' in Rope
Lane. The foundation stone, we learn from Clark's History of Ipswich, 1830, pp.
319-320, was laid on August 18th 1795 and the building held no more than one
hundred persons. This was followed as a matter of course by the acquisition of a
cemetery, the title-deeds of which are published in Transactions, vol. ii. It
was acquired on a 999 year lease on September 27th 1796 by Simon Hyam and his
son Hyam(i), Lazarus Levi, Israel Abraham, Joseph Levi, and Ansell Ansell(ii), all of
Ipswich, artificers, and Levi Alexander and Samuel Levi of Colchester, 'Trustees
for and on behalf of the Society or Meetings of Jews at Ipswich.' In 1841, only
Israel Abraham, Joseph Levi(iii) and Hyam Hyams were surviving of the original
trustees (or rather, responsible members of the community); they were now
reinforced by Harris Isaacs, the Minister, Samuel Samuel, Michael Levi, Moss
Moses, Lawrence Hyam, Abraham Asher Levi, MosesSamuel, Moses Hyam, Wolf Samuel,
Isaac Levi the elder, Isaac Levi the younger, Lewis Samuel, Samuel Samuel the
younger, Mier Levi, Simon Hyman, David Ansell and Philip Moses. There were thus
upwards of twenty responsible adult males now attached to the congregation,
though according to the Jewish Chronicle article referred to above only five
families were actually left in the town in this year. Those tombstone
inscriptions legible in 1894 were published by Gollancz in his article in
Transactions, vol. II: though he does not refer to Margoliouth's spiteful tale,
that the cemetery contains also the last resting-place of some pigeons whose
post-mortem conduct had caused them to be regarded as the recipients of
transmigrant souls.(iv) Another episode in the
early history of the Ipswich Jews which should be placed again on record is the
riot against them, on the suspicion of Jacobin proclivities, at the time of the
French Revolution. Yet the community was regarded with sympathy, if it is true
that the market-day was changed from Saturday for their convenience. In 1806,
George Levy, watchmaker, of Ipswich was married at Sunderland to Dinah, daughter
of Hart Samuel of that town, where no community apparently existed as yet. The
baptism of Hyam Burn Isaacs, son of Isaac Isaacs of Ipswich (where the latter's
father too had resided) at the age of 16 in 1810, attracted much attention and
even led to legal proceedings.(v) In 1830, the
community was reckoned to comprise not more than fifty souls. In 1849, Harris
Isaacs, Hazan and Shochet since 1817, determined to go to settle in Palestine,
and was given letters of commendation from Sir Moses Montefiore and others, as
well as a flattering complimentary address from the Mayor and Corporation. In
the end, however, he changed his mind and remained, continuing to occupy his
former post and to maintain a school at which (he advertised) a thorough Jewish
education. could be obtained. The Warden of the community at this time was a
certain S. Samuel: in 1854, the presiding officer was Moses Levy. By now, the
dispersal of the community had already made considerable progress, and its members were scattered far
and wide. Thus, for example, there are buried in Jamaica, Isaac Morris (b.
1815), who had long officiated at the Jewish burials in the island, and David
Morris (b. 1824), presumably his brother, both natives of the Suffolk
county-town. In the second half of the nineteenth century, there was a rapid
decline. When Sir Hermann Gollancz visited Ipswich in the eighteen-nineties, the
synagogue had disappeared, and only one or two Jewish families survived. In
1917, when the present writer was stationed there with the Royal Sussex
Regiment, services for the troops were held under private auspices, but none of
the former community then remained. The burial-ground was under the care of a
non-Jewish shopkeeper, who had formerly been in the employment of the last local
Jewish family and took over the charge from them as a pious duty. It is now
nominally supervised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews.(vi)

Notes to Ipswich

(i) Simon Hyam (born in Hamburg about 1740)
was generally known as 'Simcha Ipswich'; his son Hyam Hyams married a
daughter of Moses Lazarus of Rochford (see p. 19) and was an ancestor of the
Halford family.

(ii) Perhaps father of M. Ansell of Ipswich, who
with M. Aaron of the same place figures in the list of subscribers in Rules
and Regulations of the . . . Institution for the Relief of the Indigent
Blind of the Jewish Persuasion, London 1827, as also does I, Levy of
Harwich.

(iii) Died in London, April 25th 1853, aged 93; he
had been resident in Ipswich for 55 years.

(iv) Margoliouth has apparently
misunderstood the episode. The burial of birds in a new cemetery before the
first human interments was, as a matter of fact, an old superstitious
practice, which is occasionally encountered even to-day.

(v) Report of London Society for 1811, Appendix
XI, XII.

(vi) I am informed by Mr. Raphael Loewe that there is a
plot reserved for Jewish burials also in the Town cemetery, where the
distinguished Cambridge Hebraist S. M. Schiller-Szinessy was interred in
1890.

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